The Wheel
by rubypop
Summary: Mercy has one hope to escape torture at Reaper's hands. Reaper battles his own inner humanity. Life and Death engage in a wary dance in the conclusion to this series. Rape/non-con, MercyKill (Sequel to "Evil Ways.")


**The Wheel  
**

 _His success may be great, but be it ever so great_  
 _the wheel of fortune may turn again_  
 _and bring him down into the dust._  
— The Buddha

Mercy dangles, swaying by the cord at her wrists. She is dressed only in blood and bruises, running red, blooming purple. Burns like black dahlias dot her flesh. She feels but cannot see the cattle prod glide along her spine, and she shivers. Involuntary — she shows no fear, blindfolded and dangling here, as the prod traces her curves. It retracts, and then electrodes brush her chin, two hard nubs that tap suggestively.

Reaper has no more questions for her. They are far past the point of words. The threat is self-evident. She toes the floor, can't get any footing. She accepts this, ignoring the prod as it retracts again, the electricity that cracks just inches from her face, a loud buzz that cuts off again, and the electrodes, now hot, touch her lips.

Reaper waits. His breathing is anticipatory. She tries to be still.

He pushes the prod into her mouth. Plastic, brass, the electrodes at the back of her throat. His breath stops; he's holding it. Still she says nothing, makes no move at all.

The shock, when it comes, seems to arc through her teeth, through her skull, through every dendrite and axon in her brain, banishing her to a familiar world of dreaming.

#

Mercy's dreams have lost all structure. There are no images, only glimpses of feeling, voices with no language, colors that churn. There is childlike fear and maternal warmth, religious awe, carnal ecstasy. An out-of-body experience, a sense of great height, of being cut down, of being carried.

#

Mercy can tell time now only by cycles, so long has she known the cold, black cell. The cycle begins with violence, the wordless torture, cuts and blows and an eternity spent bound, subject to his limitless patience. The cycle ends always in his bed, beatings given way to caresses, strangulation to cold embrace. Lovemaking, she thinks, though she knows she should not think of it this way. Should not, but in her circumstances, in his charge, she does.

And this has helped her. "Survival," Ana had told them, "means accepting the pain as a friend." (A lover.) Because she does not resist him, he no longer keeps her bound. When he kisses her and she does not cringe away, he does so with gentleness. When he rapes her (makes love to her) it could be that night again, tangled together in his quarters.

When his gentleness ends, the torture begins again. And so pass the days.

#

When Reaper cuts her down, blood spills from Mercy's mouth. He lays her across the cot, checks her pulse. Still moving. When he removes the blindfold her eyes are distant, unseeing. He turns her on her side so that she will not choke on the blood.

He waits only a few minutes, standing very still. When she does not stir, he breaks an ammonia capsule beneath her nose. She jerks up, sees him, sinks down again. He cradles her chin and lifts her head. Blood squeezes from her lips, dousing his fingers.

"Beautiful," he whispers.

He forces her mouth open with his thumb, peers down her throat. Burns coat the pink tongue, the roof of her mouth, red, blistering. He strokes her lip.

"Very good," he says.

She stares back at him impassively. He clenches her jaw harder. She no longer cries, pleads, or shudders away, and this maddens him. He tries to enjoy this moment, to keep his irritation at bay. He tells himself he does not need cries or pleas. He needs only her, even if just this damaged shell. He needs the certainty this violence brings, a reaffirmation of himself.

The cattle prod he raises again, switches on, the deadly buzz filling the room. She doesn't even look at it. She stares only at him, an unflinching gaze that borders on intimacy. It both unnerves and arouses him. He pushes her against the cot, hefting the prod higher.

"Round two," he says, and he brings the prod back down.

#

At night, Reaper swings from the apogee of certainty to uncertainty, from brutality to tenderness. Like stepping into fog, he is muddled, turned around. He cradles Mercy in his bed as though holding together something close to breaking. Pouring her warmth into himself. Sometimes her weak arms encircle him, too, and when he kisses her he anticipates the rare moments when her lips draw together, accepting.

He kisses her gently tonight — her lips have blistered, cracking in white peaks. Her brows draw only faintly in pain. He eases her open with his fingers, working them in slowly. He presses against her, savoring her heat.

He does not think about much, drunk as he is on this warmth. He does not think about the duties he has neglected these past weeks, the former Overwatch agents that still walk free. He does not think about the council or the results he had promised. He thinks only of the blood moving in his veins, the heartbeat, the life that is returning to him. Even if it is only an illusion. When he breathes, at the climax of these nights, his breath comes out hot, heady, alive. When he detaches himself from her, the cold returns again.

He knows that this intoxication cannot last. He struggles for balance, attacking her during the day with great cruelty. It stirs his arousal again and again. A losing struggle? He finds that he does not care. It's enough to keep him from knowing the impermanence of feeling alive.

Tonight he gathers her head in his hands. She is limp and scuffed as a doll, her hair spilling gold across the pillows. He kisses the bruises on her throat, the impressions of cords, of fingers. His mouth brushes the abrasions on her breasts. He wants to force her mouth over his cock but doesn't, wary of her burns. (Has she suffered enough?) Instead he cradles her hips and pushes into her. The fine hairs on her arms lift. Spates of black shadow drip from him, course over her. Her eyelids flutter. He goes slowly, watching her undulate across the bed.

"Gabriel," she whispers, and he touches her face.

"Gabriel," she says again. He doesn't know if she is still with him or not.

The warmth is building. He can see it draining from her, a pall that creeps across her face. The heat begins in the pit of his stomach and spreads higher, higher. He forces himself to keep a steady pace. She mouths something, his name perhaps (his former name), and then she speaks again, weakly, sweetly: "Gabriel, oh."

His rejuvenated heart catches.

Her words bevel into a low, long moan.

He cradles her face. Could she be dreaming? But no, her eyes flicker open and she holds his gaze, her hands twisting into the sheets. His heart flits, shivers. She moans again, more briefly this time, clipped. He leans forward, bears down. He sees her in the doorway in Gibraltar. He sees her pushing her hips against his, telling him, in low tones, that she needs this.

"Your enthusiasm," he said when he came for her in Zürich. "Where is it now?"

She's caressing his scalp, her cold fingers gliding through his colorless, close-cut hair. Her legs come up, thighs pressing. Oh, but she is weak still, so weak. She pulls his head down and kisses him.

He inhales sharply. Her tongue plies his, rough, dry from the burns. He wets it delicately. She must still be in pain, but she writhes against him, her thighs urging him deeper. The fog returns, sweet intoxication. Nothing else exists but this. He shuts his eyes and tries to make it last. The air between them is scented torpor, swirling heat. He sees himself as he used to be, ruthless but disciplined, a soldier, a mentor. He sees the young blond doctor that had restored in him a capacity for love.

Love? Did he love her?

When he comes it is a surprise, and his whole body jolts, leaving him gasping. She shuts her eyes. He slumps against her, heaving. The heat is already beginning to leave.

"Gabriel," she murmurs. She reaches up, touches his scalp again.

His hand snaps up, seizes her wrist. She gasps, and then he's crushing her throat with his other hand, clenching tighter, tighter.

"Never," he hisses, his fingers digging into the bruised flesh. "Ever. _Ever_. Say that name again."

Tears spring to her eyes and run in dark tracks down her face. A reaction at last.

"Do you hear me?" he says.

She chokes, chokes again. Mouths the word, "Yes."

"I didn't hear you," he growls.

She shuts her eyes. He squeezes harder. Her once-pale face is reddening, purpling.

"Yes," she manages, and he releases her.

"Next time I won't let go," he says, and he rises quickly from the bed, dresses, and leaves the room, too agitated to stay with her a moment longer.

#

The monks work diligently, repairing what they can of Genji's cybernetics. Three of them are trained doctors, having come to Shambali relatively late in their lives, and the rest chant mantra after mantra, urging them on with prayer. Two bullets are buried deep in the gray matter of Genji's skull, and the doctors must pick at them delicately, extracting fragments that are just millimeters in width. They monitor the state of his backup power, pausing when the stress on his system seems to great, and together they all meditate, waiting, and then they begin again.

The bullets have tunnelled through the brain itself, which, though enhanced with neurocybernetics, is still mostly organic matter. The monks know that surgery to repair such damage might be impossible. Still they work, desperate, even in their meditative calm, to save him.

#

Darkness. Pain like a sword through his skull. A budding slow pulse. Flicker of body heat, a sweet scent. The cold bite of a peach. Wingbeats. March of blood. The crack of frost in the air.

Voice. I love you.

I love you, Genji.

Darkness. Pain. Darkness.

#

Mercy awakens in disbelief. She is alone in Reaper's bed, wrapped in sheets. She shuts her eyes, opens them again. She sits up and has to support herself against the wall. She spits blood onto the floor.

The pain is so bad that her body nearly refuses to cooperate, and she feels as though she's been drugged. Her hands drag against the bed, heavy as weights. She leans against the wall and allows the tiniest whimper, squeezes her eyes shut again, and she stands, her knees buckling.

A cold, viscous line trickles down her thigh. She staggers to the sink, remembering.

She washes her face, renewed by the revelation that has been had. She tries to temper her hope, advising herself to be wary. But a plan is budding, a chance, a chance after all this time, even if it's just a small one.

She stares at herself in the mirror. Hope has restored some color to her battered face. It's the most alive she's felt since the kiss she and Genji shared so many weeks ago.

Genji. Her eyes prick with tears. She reaches out to the mirror as though her fingers can pass through it, as though she can touch some other reality, a reality where the bullets passed through her skull and not his. She allows herself to weep, alone in her captor's room.

Strong. I must be strong. She rinses her face again. I will survive this. I will live.

#

She is silent when Reaper returns, obedient, keeping her eyes downcast. She knows that daring to look at him will bring only disaster. She expects him to take her back to her cell, but he slaps her across the face, sending her to the floor.

"Kneel," he growls. He's wearing his mask again, hooded, impenetrable.

The slap has disoriented her. She takes too long climbing from the floor. He kicks her and she crumples against the side of the bed. He drags her onto the mattress.

"You've pissed me off," he says, and his knee digs into her stomach. She gags, coughs. The burns in her throat crackle, scorch, reopen. "And I'm sick of your little vow of silence. You smug, self-righteous bitch."

She knows that she has endangered herself greatly.

"Now, you will do as I say."

"One must accept," Ana had said, "that their torturer will not feel sorry, will not yield. Will only escalate with time."

"If you don't," Reaper says, winding his fingers around her left thumb, "I'm going to break every bone in your body. One." He pulls, bending it at an odd angle, and twists, keeps twisting. "By. One."

With a snap her thumb breaks at the joint, and her cry of pain is cut short by his knee piercing her stomach. Her throat is a funnel, a vacuum, a series of tearing wounds.

He delicately releases her thumb, which crooks away from her hand, purpling already. He takes her index finger next, gripping its base like a vise.

"Do you believe me?" he says.

She nods tearfully.

"I said," and he snaps the bone at the joint again, much more quickly this time, and she writhes underneath him, silently weeping. "Do you. Believe me."

"Yes," she rasps, her throat scorching anew.

"Good. You will answer me when I speak to you. Do you understand?"

Scarcely getting it out: "Yes."

He grasps her middle finger, eases his knee just a bit.

She expects him to restate his demands, to ask for names, locations. He breathes instead, "Beg me to hurt you."

She stares at him. She is almost positive that she has misheard. He gives her finger a warning twist, and she shudders, says softly, "Please. Please hurt me —"

"Beg me," he barks, and she cries out, "Please, God, please, do it — hurt me — break me —"

"Break you?" he says. "You want me to break you?"

"Yes, yes —"

His knee comes down with great force, and she hears the crack of her rib before she feels it, a long hot stab to her chest, and her breath saws, and she sees stars, could swear the night sky has opened up above her, an infinity of beautiful stars.

"Thank me," Reaper says from far above her.

She opens her mouth, closes it. Her voice is a distant thread.

He nudges her broken rib and her throat spasms, mucus bubbling up.

"Th . . ." She numbly teethes at the word. "Thank . . . you . . ."

"Did that feel good? Tell me."

The stars, the stars. She focuses on them, only faintly aware of the blood drooling down her chin. "Y — yes."

His voice is low: "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Her eyes blink, glassy, disconnected from her.

He wipes her mouth clean. "God."

When she looks at him she feels her vision is traveling over miles, over ages, over eons.

"Tell me to fuck you," he says.

She breathes, a wheeze issuing from her throat. The pain in her fingers has numbed, eclipsed by the fracture in her rib. She says: "Please . . ."

"No. Don't ask. Tell me."

He leans closer.

"I know you need this," he says.

What can she do to bring back the Gabriel Reyes that she once knew, that she knows is still there?

"Fuck me," she manages, "until I die."

His breath issues from the mask, cold, insatiable. She raises her eyes again, calling upon peace, tranquility.

#

Two monks come running, though they are careful not to startle the doctors as they enter the makeshift operating room. They wait with scarcely-contained excitement as the last bullet fragment is extracted from Genji's skull. Once it _tinks_ gently into a waiting teacup, the monks present their discovery: a black locking case that, once forced open, reveals a folded white staff.

#

A dragon twists through the darkness. It is a river, it is a banner, it is a tattooed arm that grips a sword. It is a flashing katana. It is a flash of hair, silvery-gold in the moonlight. It is a pain that crushes him. It comes in waves.

His father, his brother, the elders, his hand, gone, his legs, gone, his arm, his guts, his jaw.

Skidding through gravel, bullets to the brain. Safe, she's safe. I have kept her safe.

Gabriel Reyes whispering: Join us or bleed out where you lay.

Gabriel Reyes urging him: Your anger will be your deadliest weapon.

Zenyatta, stirring tea: Your form is temporary. Your spirit is eternal.

The Iris finds him, focusing, zeroing in. He opens his arms to welcome Paradise.

Not yet, Zenyatta says, Mercy says, the Iris beginning to fade. Not yet.

Tranquility runs through him in a gentle stream, a tether, a flickering dragon that leads him away, back again from the light.

#

Reaper forces her to support herself on her broken hand, her right arm twisted back, as he bends her over the bed. She senses the confusion behind his anger, positive now that he is battling something. When he violates her she collapses forward at first, and he yanks her back up. She finds an uneasy balance on the palm of her left hand, trying to avoid leaning on the broken fingers. With every thrust her cracked rib stabs her, stabs and stabs again.

I will use this anger, she thinks, floating just beyond the crest of delirium. I will use it. I will use it.

"Gabriel," she utters, and he wrenches her right arm with great ferocity, radius twisting over ulna.

Yes, she thinks. He is still there. Gabriel is still there.

"I loved you, Gabriel. Please —"

"Shut up," he hisses.

"I did. I was afraid. I'm so sorry —"

"Shut up." He wrenches her arm again. The joint of her elbow strains, is beginning to crack. "Shut. Up."

"I know how you felt about me. How you still feel —"

"You're lying. You fucking whore."

"Let me kiss you. Let me see your face — while you break me."

He slows then, and does not twist her arm any further.

"I deserve this." Her voice is trembling, and she hopes it injects her words with sincerity. "I caused this to happen. All of it. Nothing would make me happier — than to die — looking at you."

"You don't want to die," he says.

She forces a laugh, nearly doubles over from the pain in her rib. "What on Earth do I have to live for?"

He pulls out of her. He turns her around, and she falls in a slow collapse to the bed, sinking deep, deeper. Her vision blurs. He's nothing but a black shadow, a skull, looming darkness.

He bends over her. She reaches for him, and he allows her to push the mask from his face. As he comes closer his features coalesce, scars and dead white flesh, black eyes, and she can make out Reyes from here, the softening expression, the tenderness returning for now.

"I love you," she whispers, caressing his face. "Kiss me."

She cradles his head in both hands. Tranquility, she thinks. Mindfulness, she thinks. Survival.

She grips him behind the ears and smashes her forehead into his nose. There is a crack — her skull or his nose, she doesn't know which — and he gurgles, spasming, and he drops unceremoniously to the floor.

She lurches to her feet, seizing the bedsheet. She flees the room, propelled by pure, searing adrenaline.

#

Genji opens his eyes. The monks surround him, joyful. He recognizes the long shape of the Caduceus staff as his vision returns, and a wave of information hits him, calculations, sequencing, realizations. When he speaks, his voice is thick with dread: "Where is she?"

The monks bow their heads in sorrow.

He takes the staff and charges to the destroyed room. Her bag is still there, half-buried in rubble, and he digs through it. Chemicals leak from parasympathetic nerves, stifling the tide of panic that is threatening to break.

Where is she. His repaired brain cycles through a loop. Where is she. Where is she.

#

Mercy creeps down a silent corridor, pressing herself to the wall. She's knotted the bedsheet over her breasts, and it drapes nearly to the floor. She could be a young girl in a nightdress fleeing from monsters, so surreal is this predicament to her.

The alarm sounds when she's nearly to the communications room. She wedges herself into a utility closet and holds her breath as a flurry of black-armored grunts charge past. She feels along the shelves until her hand closes around the heavy, cast-iron handle of a pipe wrench.

When the hallway is clear she slips out again, bathed in red crisis lights. The comm room is empty — "All hands," the alarm intones over wailing klaxons — and she hovers over the unfamiliar consoles, trying to stay calm. She recognizes, at last, a base station transceiver, and she dials out. She doesn't know where she is — has no idea — and so she sends a signal to the only coordinates she knows: the receiver in her Caduceus staff, left behind in a monastery in Nepal.

The door behind her bangs open. She turns. Black body armor, ballistic mask. Not him. She swings the pipe wrench before he can react. She takes his gun and she flees, the bedsheet rippling around her.

#

Reaper staggers from the alarm switch, his nose gushing blood. He drags his mask back over his face. Blood drips from its vents in red gouts. He seizes a pair of shotguns, cocks them both. No more mistakes.

#

The Caduceus staff awakens, spilling light across the destroyed room. Genji startles, and he takes it from his back. Its flanges are alit, the white wings rotating. The lights blink, pause, blinks again: S — O — S.

Genji's visor scans the signal, reading it. He traces its origin. Latitude, longitude. There. She's there. He takes off running. The monks outside scatter like birds.

#

Mercy hides, her hands folded over the stolen gun in prayer.

#

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

"Whoa. Well, howdy there. It's been a long time since I heard from anybody from the old days."

"I don't have time to talk. I need your help."

"Happy to, depending on the circumstances. Weren't you off being a monk somewhere?"

"It's Angela. Reyes has her."

A low whistle.

"I can't do this by myself. She's in a Talon base just off the coast of Morocco. It's small, but it's crawling with soldiers."

"Morocco? You mean the old Blackwatch proving ground on Deserta Grande?"

"The very one."

"He's a nostalgic bastard, isn't he."

"Where are you? Can you meet me there?"

"I'm in Texas but I can catch a jet. Some former Deadlocks owe me a favor. You need transportation too?"

"If you can arrange it. I'll send you the coordinates."

"Looking forward to the reunion. Be there in three shakes."

#

"Useless," Reaper shouts as the black-armored soldiers cringe away. "All of you, useless. She couldn't have gotten far. Find her. Find her or I'll kill every single one of you."

#

Hours pass. Mercy has not moved from her hiding place, wedged between two shelving units in an unlit warehouse. The odor of cutting fluid and ammunition turns her stomach. Her broken fingers are swollen, her rib excruciating. Still she settles into a meditative state, pressing the gun to her chest. She wonders who will be the first to find her: a rescuer, perhaps, sent by the monks in Nepal? Or Reaper, surely searching for her in a deadly fury. If she is caught — recaptured — God forbid. She knows this is her only chance. She pulls back the hammer of the gun as quietly as she can. Should he discover her, she knows exactly how to end things with no pain: the barrel in her mouth, pointed slightly down, so that the bullet will sever the connection between her spinal cord and skull. A quick lights-out. And she will be with Genji once again.

She shuts her eyes, mustering the courage.

#

Reaper stalks the halls, searching, searching. The blood that dripped from his mask has long dried, and it marks the places he has been. The soldiers prowl, low alert now, too afraid of him to express their doubts.

He curses his own weakness. He spits blood through his mask. When he finds her, he will take her apart. Piece by fucking piece.

#

Mindfulness, Mercy thinks. Mindfulness. Tranquility.

#

A soldier sits, nearly dozing, in a watchtower. Night has long fallen and the whole base is still on alert. He yawns blearily. When he blinks the drowsiness from his eyes he realizes someone is there, perched on the guardrail. He blinks again, staring at the grinning face of — a cowboy?

"Hey there," McCree says, and he flings his sarape over the soldier's head.

The soldier stumbles, and McCree yanks the sarape, smashing the soldier's skull into the guardrail. He hops into the watchtower and fixes his hat. Genji's voice crackles in his earpiece: "Are you secure?"

"Right as rain." McCree shakes out his sarape and dons it. The soldier is out cold.

"Can you get me inside?"

"Sure thing. Saddle up. You'll need to move fast."

He twirls his trusty six-shooter and takes stock of the grounds. There are three more watchtowers and a small patrol circling the base. A bit understaffed, he thinks. He twirls the gun again and focuses on the patrol. Eight men. Piece of cake.

Mark the targets. Aim. Fire!

Six rapid shots from the Peacemaker and only two men in the patrol are left standing. They whip around in confusion, aiming their rifles. One points in the direction of the watchtower but McCree is already reloading, leveling the gun again, and he fires, headshot, headshot.

McCree touches his earpiece. "Move in, partner. I'm about to get swarmed."

"Thank you."

"Ain't nothin. See you inside."

#

The alarms wail anew, jolting Mercy from her meditation. Her heart quickens. Have they found her? But no, the warehouse is still. She lifts her eyes to the ceiling. Someone is here. Someone has come for her at last.

#

She called for help. That bitch. Reaper corners a passing soldier.

"Who is here? What is going on?"

"We're still trying to get an ID," the soldier stammers. "But it — it looks like — some kind of cowboy."

Reaper growls, long and furious.

#

Genji flickers, silent as death, into the rear entrance of the base. He knows its layout well, having trained here for months under Reyes's bloodthirsty instruction. He creeps through a loading dock, using the armored vehicles as cover. There are only a few men here — most have been summoned to deal with the gunslinging intruder on the far side of the grounds.

The takedowns are silent and sudden. Genji continues on. He noted upon arrival that the soldiers were mobilized, appeared to have been active for some time. Searching for her, he thinks as he moves through the shadows. So she has escaped, but she has not gone far. Could not, in a place like this.

He passes telltale trails of blood, dull scarlet streaked across the floor.

#

Oh, please, Mercy thinks, prays, allows herself to hope. Oh, please. Find me.

#

Reaper kicks open door after door. He ignores the soldiers that run past, the gunfire outside. He trained Jesse McCree himself. He knows he will have to deal with him later.

Find her. I will find her. She is mine.

#

She is here, Genji is thinking now. Running, searching, his brain caught in a feedback loop. She is here. She is here.

#

Mercy glances up as the door to the warehouse bangs open. Her heart leaping to her throat. She's too terrified to move from her hiding place, too afraid to chance a glimpse. She squeezes the gun. Heavy footsteps draw closer, echoing. Footsteps from heavy boots . . .

She sees him then, black coat, the blood-spattered death's head.

No time. She pushes the gun to the back of her throat.

He vanishes, scattering smoke. When he reappears behind her the shelves shudder back, screeching against the floor. He wrestles the gun from her mouth and she fires. Debris from the ceiling rains down on them. He drags her into the open, striking her rib with the sharp point of his elbow. She crumples.

"You bitch," he's uttering, over and over. "You bitch."

She's reaching for the gun, feebly, which has skittered away across the floor.

"Kill me," she cries, her voice high-pitched, unfamiliar. "Please just kill me."

"Oh, we are far past the point of negotiation," he growls. "After all the trouble you've given me? I'm going to make you wish you were dead."

Blades sing through the room, a fan of shuriken that thud into Reaper's armored back. He staggers forward, grunting.

Mercy glances up, not believing.

With a flicker of neon, a lithe shape leaps from the wall. Reaper hefts one of his shotguns and fires, once, twice, three times. A blade flashes, deflecting every single bullet. A longer blade emerges now, its edge glowing green, deadly. It whistles toward Reaper in a blazing arc.

Reaper escapes, the three shuriken dropping to the ground in a column of smoke.

Mercy drops, and someone catches her, Genji catches her, yes, she must be dead, she must be dreaming, because Genji is here.

She throws her arms around his shoulders with a cry.

He takes a moment to embrace her, and then he twirls his wakizashi again, bullets ricocheting in a shower of sparks.

"Nine lives?" Reaper has both shotguns raised, a bloody demon in the dark.

"Just a good doctor," Genji says, and he flips back, clutching Mercy close, as Reaper fires again.

"Eyes open, partner!"

Genji covers Mercy's eyes and a flashbang goes off, hot and bright. Reaper is staggering back, and there is Jesse McCree of all people, pitching in a quick combat roll across the room.

"Darlin," he says to her, tipping his hat.

Reaper shoots blindly and they scatter. McCree's gun whirls in a blurring pirouette. He shouts, "Get her out of here. I'll take care of him."

"You . . ." Reaper spits.

"I shoulda known your little crush would develop into somethin unhealthy." McCree takes aim. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you, darlin. That wasn't gentlemanly of me."

Genji runs, flying down the hall as a hail of bullets echoes from the room.

#

The wheel turns. Mercy drifts in Genji's arms, oblivious to the world around her. The pain and the panic have settled into a quiet that dulls her senses. She stares at Genji as they escape, leans her head against his chest, against the human heart that she knows is still there.

The wheel turns. Genji grips Mercy's limp form as they depart from Deserta Grande. The atmospheric craft is small and silent, leaving the island with no resistance. Genji lifts the Caduceus staff, waving it inexpertly over her. He thinks, as the biotic tether bathes her in a golden wave, that love must be a powerful thing, a very powerful, frightening thing indeed.

And the wheel turns. Reaper is bleeding out on the floor of the Talon warehouse, saved only by the squad of soldiers that interrupted McCree's final stand. The cowboy has fled, and medics are being summoned with great swiftness. Reaper lies unmoving, his thoughts unraveling. Somewhere inside of him, he knows that Gabriel Reyes, having briefly tasted life again, is dead and gone for good.

Mercy's eyes refocus. She smiles at Genji. He presses his forehead to hers. They embrace, clutching one another as though they may never separate, as though this closeness will prevent anything from coming between them.

The wheel turns again.

###

 _All beings have lived and died and been reborn countless times._  
 _Over and over again they have experienced the indescribable Clear Light._  
 _But because they are obscured by the darkness of ignorance,_  
 _they wander endlessly in a limitless samsara.  
_ — Padmasambhava on Samsara, the Cycle of Life and Death

###


End file.
